No matter how much we love BTC, confirmations take way too long! - page 7.

fonsie

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Quote from: AliceWonder on July 28, 2014, 01:08:38 PM

Quote from: RodeoX on July 28, 2014, 12:59:28 PM

Quote from: AliceWonder on July 28, 2014, 12:50:24 PM

Or in 40 to 70 minutes the merchant finds out you sent the same outputs to 4 other addresses... and the transaction you sent to him was not confirmed.

Equivalent of writing a bad check but he has nothing to go on to recover his losses.

True. it's a legit risk. I like using the number of confirmations relative to the amount as a way to mitigate the risk. So if I were selling a car I would want 6 confirmations. If selling a bag of popcorn, I might not even wait for one.

Selling a car you can wait, but the wait time at places like the grocery store where the cost is often several hundred dollars would kill the checkout. So the only way those places could accept bitcoin is through 3rd party, making bitcoin not the best coin for them. Other coins however have much lower risk.

With 30 second confirms at a grocery store there is much less time to try and pull a double spend so the risk of letting them leave before confirm is far less than with bitcoin. And if you do see a double spend hit the network before a confirm you may even be able to have your security record their license plate number because it would have to very quickly be executed.

There's no need to try performing a double spend, just steal the grocery bag, much easier. Better to keep the entire network safe by 10 min confirmation, instead of those altcoins with seconds of confirmation times just so that mommy/teller can see it's confirmed, but when she comes home, the entire thing has gone to shit.

AliceWonder

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Quote from: dancupid on July 28, 2014, 01:07:44 PM

There is no single instance in the entire history of Bitcoin of this ever occurring.

Where do bitcoin transaction over $100 in value take place?

Outside of Internet where you can wait for confirms before shipping, they are quite rare.

There's a reason.

AliceWonder

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Quote from: RodeoX on July 28, 2014, 12:59:28 PM

Quote from: AliceWonder on July 28, 2014, 12:50:24 PM

Or in 40 to 70 minutes the merchant finds out you sent the same outputs to 4 other addresses... and the transaction you sent to him was not confirmed.

Equivalent of writing a bad check but he has nothing to go on to recover his losses.

True. it's a legit risk. I like using the number of confirmations relative to the amount as a way to mitigate the risk. So if I were selling a car I would want 6 confirmations. If selling a bag of popcorn, I might not even wait for one.

Selling a car you can wait, but the wait time at places like the grocery store where the cost is often several hundred dollars would kill the checkout. So the only way those places could accept bitcoin is through 3rd party, making bitcoin not the best coin for them. Other coins however have much lower risk.

With 30 second confirms at a grocery store there is much less time to try and pull a double spend so the risk of letting them leave before confirm is far less than with bitcoin. And if you do see a double spend hit the network before a confirm you may even be able to have your security record their license plate number because it would have to very quickly be executed.

dancupid

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Quote from: RodeoX on July 28, 2014, 12:59:28 PM

Quote from: AliceWonder on July 28, 2014, 12:50:24 PM

Or in 40 to 70 minutes the merchant finds out you sent the same outputs to 4 other addresses... and the transaction you sent to him was not confirmed.

Equivalent of writing a bad check but he has nothing to go on to recover his losses.

True. it's a legit risk. I like using the number of confirmations relative to the amount as a way to mitigate the risk. So if I were selling a car I would want 6 confirmations. If selling a bag of popcorn, I might not even wait for one.

There is no single instance in the entire history of Bitcoin of this ever occurring.
The same output has to occur in the same moment of the initial transaction and has to be propagated on the network in such a way that is is impossible to detect before the thief runs away with the swag (his coffee).
Any merchant who is worrying about this should not be running a business - there is more chance that the cash they are accepting is a forgery, or that the customer is a suicide bomber about to kill everyone in the shop.

RodeoX

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The revolution will be monetized!

Quote from: AliceWonder on July 28, 2014, 12:50:24 PM

Or in 40 to 70 minutes the merchant finds out you sent the same outputs to 4 other addresses... and the transaction you sent to him was not confirmed.

Equivalent of writing a bad check but he has nothing to go on to recover his losses.

True. it's a legit risk. I like using the number of confirmations relative to the amount as a way to mitigate the risk. So if I were selling a car I would want 6 confirmations. If selling a bag of popcorn, I might not even wait for one.

AliceWonder

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Quote from: desired_username on July 28, 2014, 12:56:29 PM

I've been using BTC for years. I never had any problem due to the confirmation time.

Have you used it to buy gas?

AliceWonder

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Quote from: beetcoin on July 28, 2014, 12:52:29 PM

this is another reason i forgot why bitcoin can never replace paper currency, even if delusional people still think that.

It's not delusional.

There are two kinds of gas stations - those take that credit cards and charge a dime more a gallon to cover losses from processing and chargebacks, and those that only take cash and debit cards where chargebacks are much much harder.

Debit cards are more like bitcoin, you have to have the funds - and they don't have the same chargebacks that credit cards have.
Yet they can be instantly confirmed.

bitcoin once it has confirmed is like debit card but it takes way too long to confirm to be used at something like a gas station.

A coin that confirms in 30 seconds or less however is only risky if there is a fork, and that's not very common.

bitcoin is a fantastic coin, but not the right one for point of sale.

desired_username

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I've been using BTC for years. I never had any problem due to the confirmation time.

vpitcher07

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Quote from: peeveepee on July 28, 2014, 09:57:53 AM

Quote from: leex1528 on July 28, 2014, 09:56:35 AM

What is the average time for 1 confirmation? 15-30 minutes ? That isn't exactly terrible considering a lot of banks have a 3 business day policy...

Yes. Actually, 1st confirmation usually is around 10 mins based on my experience.

An average of 10 minutes is by design. Network difficulty adjusts to keep it on a 10 minute basis. If hashrate increases, difficulty increases to keep it at 10 minutes. (Roughly)

beetcoin

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this is another reason i forgot why bitcoin can never replace paper currency, even if delusional people still think that. compound all those microtransactions for .003 btc water and gum purchases, and it will be a big issue.

AliceWonder

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Or in 40 to 70 minutes the merchant finds out you sent the same outputs to 4 other addresses... and the transaction you sent to him was not confirmed.

Equivalent of writing a bad check but he has nothing to go on to recover his losses.

RodeoX

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The revolution will be monetized!

Quote from: AliceWonder on July 28, 2014, 12:27:41 PM

Quote from: RodeoX on July 28, 2014, 12:05:51 PM

It seems long to us. But the next fastest method, credit cards, can takes days to confirm. Sure the retailer let's you walk out of the store, but he has no way of knowing if your good for the money until later. With bitcoin, confirmation is confirmation of a transfer of wealth and completes the transaction.

With credit cards, the only real risk the merchant has is if the card is stolen. They can look at the signature and check ID and greatly reduce that risk.

If it is your card and you reverse charges, they have the option to take you to court. They don't have that option with bitcoin if you double spend because all they have is a cryptic number that can't easily be tied to an identity.

That's all certainly true. But consider that in 20-30mins. the retailer has your bitcoin with some confirmations and at that point who cares if your lying about your identity. Kinda like cash. If you pay me in cash and lie about your name, I still have cash and I'll call you Shirley if you want me to.
As you point out, cards have little risk because they are backed and insured. Something which we all pay for via fees. Bitcoin offers no such protection and requires more of the user/retailer. The rewards for doing it yourself are greatly reduced fees.

AliceWonder

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Quote from: RodeoX on July 28, 2014, 12:05:51 PM

It seems long to us. But the next fastest method, credit cards, can takes days to confirm. Sure the retailer let's you walk out of the store, but he has no way of knowing if your good for the money until later. With bitcoin, confirmation is confirmation of a transfer of wealth and completes the transaction.

With credit cards, the only real risk the merchant has is if the card is stolen. They can look at the signature and check ID and greatly reduce that risk.

If it is your card and you reverse charges, they have the option to take you to court. They don't have that option with bitcoin if you double spend because all they have is a cryptic number that can't easily be tied to an identity.

jonald_fyookball

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Core dev leaves me neg feedback #abuse #political

Quote from: joshraban76 on July 28, 2014, 02:00:02 AM

Maybe what we need is a company like Visa or MC to supply a service where we deposit bitcoin and they issue the charge as fiat there wouldn't be any conformation time because the confirms would already have happened when you made the deposit.

Already exists.

Coinbase and GreenAddress provide instant confirmations.
Except its even better...no fiat.

RodeoX

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The revolution will be monetized!

It seems long to us. But the next fastest method, credit cards, can takes days to confirm. Sure the retailer let's you walk out of the store, but he has no way of knowing if your good for the money until later. With bitcoin, confirmation is confirmation of a transfer of wealth and completes the transaction.

Lauda

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Terminated.

Quote from: franky1 on July 28, 2014, 05:01:39 AM

Quote from: Lauda on July 28, 2014, 04:47:53 AM

Why are you complaining? International money transfer takes much longer.

because the OP thinks thinks that credit cards are different. which they arnt. bitcoins are faster than credit cards, the only difference is that it requires that extra layer (a third party to insure signed transactions).

if the OP only wants to accept confirmed tx's this is where a bitcoin debit service can easily come in. where people use a service they pre-deposit small daily spend amounts (to get pre confirmed) and then they can spend instantly. (research offchain tx's much like mtgox codes or btc-e codes work to send between members)

like i said for small daily spend amounts offchain tx's solve this problem. as it gives trust to the merchantof receiving funds (because the funds are pre-locked in and confirmed) and because its small amounts, it gives consumers trust of the third party service ( i never recommend throwing your entire hoard into third parties)

What's much worse is that if you look at the replies after the one that I quoted, it is either that: a) almost nobody read your posts; b) didn't understand them.
Yes, I actually had a cc which got into a minus balance (even though I told the bank that I don't want it to be able to go under 0).
What actually happened is that I was doing many transactions, but VISA actually processed most of them only on the 20th day of the month.

dancupid

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Quote from: AliceWonder on July 28, 2014, 11:47:44 AM

The confirmations take too long.

I get that the risk of double spend is very low, extremely low, especially for low value purchases.
But without using a third party to process the risk is still too high.

I write a check and it bounces, they have my identification they can come after me with, etc.

What do they have with bitcoin?

Third party payment processing does solve the problem because the third party can see the transaction of the network before it is confirmed, validate that it has a fee miners are likely to accept, etc. and give approval - but the whole fucking point of crypto-currency is to free us from the need of third party control over the flow of money - and that freedom is often used as a selling point.

So saying the solution is to use third party processing (for a percentage of the purchase price) is a bullshit answer.

Bitcoin simply wasn't designed for transactions where a fast confirmation is needed.

But it doesn't have to be the one coin that meets all needs.

Can you provide an actual example of when you used Bitcoin and the transaction processing was too slow?

AliceWonder

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The confirmations take too long.

I get that the risk of double spend is very low, extremely low, especially for low value purchases.
But without using a third party to process the risk is still too high.

I write a check and it bounces, they have my identification they can come after me with, etc.

What do they have with bitcoin?

Third party payment processing does solve the problem because the third party can see the transaction of the network before it is confirmed, validate that it has a fee miners are likely to accept, etc. and give approval - but the whole fucking point of crypto-currency is to free us from the need of third party control over the flow of money - and that freedom is often used as a selling point.

So saying the solution is to use third party processing (for a percentage of the purchase price) is a bullshit answer.

Bitcoin simply wasn't designed for transactions where a fast confirmation is needed.

But it doesn't have to be the one coin that meets all needs.

minerpumpkin

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A pumpkin mines 27 hours a night

They really don't take too long. The transaction itself gets recognized and propagated through the network almost instantaneously! It takes a mere 1-3 seconds. If effectively all nodes have accepted that transaction and if it is likely to be included in the next block, you really don't have to care about the actual confirmation! Only wait for multiple confirmations when a lot of money is involved. That takes time in the regular payment systems, as well. Oh and credit cards work the same way, they accept your payment and the actual money only comes after multiple weeks or so.

BillyBobJoe

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Quote from: MegaHustlr on July 28, 2014, 02:08:00 AM

We don't need any company like Visa or Mastercard. We're trying to get away from those type of companies. And like the user above says we already have services like Bitpay that cover these transactions so its irrelevant.

How about you not worry about this "any company" so that others MAY use that service IF they desire? Nobody said you must use it.

Topic: No matter how much we love BTC, confirmations take way too long! - page 7. (Read 8490 times)